Madness Whispers Sweetly
by L. VanDattae
Summary: In a world where the Waynes harbor a dark curse and Timothy has been murdered, decades later they accidentally run across his reincarnation in a human boy named Tim. Too bad Tim wants nothing to do with them, and well, kidnapping's a criminal offense. Can they convince him to trust them before Timothy's murderer manages to tie off the loose end? Characters: Tim, Dick, Jason, Bruce
1. The Pretender

**Disclaimer:** All characters are copyright of DC. No monetary profit is being made from the writing or distribution of this fic.

**Chapter 1**

The Pretender

_The scimitar glittered red—a fine sheen of liquid blood along its edge, over the crusted black beneath. It dripped to the ground in glistening beads._

_Timothy watched it from the floor, blue eyes glazed, head tilted toward the musical plink of those little red droplets with all the desperation of the dying, but it wasn't the growing puddle of newly spilt blood he was concerned with—his own blood, running out—it was the crusted black beneath. _

_Dirty blood, inside him, crawling through his veins. _

"_I would have preferred a cleaner method, but well… we both know the effort would have proven futile. Your kind seem cursed with natural resistance to fatality." There was no triumph, no satisfaction in that voice, just curious consideration, cold truth. Light flickered off the silver blade of the scimitar, dancing along the walls. _

_Timothy jerked when the burning in his veins became unbearable. Fingernails raked furrows along his arms, his sides, but couldn't claw out the fire he could feel just under his skin, snaking deeper inside. He twisted, panting, breaths fanning against the floor. The pale arc of his throat worked, tongue pressed low against a fence of teeth. Sweat-soaked black hair splayed whisper-fine shadows around his head. Even dying, the little scraps of darkness found him—the pits in the floor, the angular slanting shadow of the sword—all pooling under him like a discarded cloak, hugging the little contours of chin and ribs and calves, clinging to eyelashes. When he arced back, the shadows scurried to realign themselves just a fraction late._

_His throat closed off any pitiful mewls—it was too late anyway, far too late. Booted heals scraped stone one last time before stilling. Glittering droplets of sweat cooled on his skin, like a fine net of diamonds. There was nothing left but the perpetual chill of the floor, soaking into his soul. _

_So this was what it felt like to die. It was colder than he'd considered. _

"_It is done, Timothy." _

* * *

As with most things, Dick was first.

It was a dark night—it always was in Gotham—and Dick was a shadow on the street, sliding between streetlights and flickering in the guttering glow of neon signs. He existed in the space between breaths, between one heartbeat and another. The shadows stuck to him—the little bits of darkness cast by crumpled paper cups and cracks in the concrete stirring as he passed. If he stopped, he'd become one of them, just another patch of shadows a little darker than the rest, a little too dark for the nearby streetlamps if anyone looked right.

The sounds and colors all rolled together after a while, the world washing by him in blues and grays and… red. The red was a boy, head down, the hood of his jacket pulled up. Dick wouldn't have given it a second thought, but just at that moment as they were passing, the boy's head lifted, and Dick got one perfect glimpse of blue eyes set off by a shock of raven hair. It was just a flash, but it seared his vision with ghostly afterimages of that same face smiling, crying, curled up cutely in sleep.

He jerked to a stop, crashing gracelessly back into the flow of traffic and human noise.

It was a trick of his mind—that was all, surely. Just a trick of his subconscious, playing on that one last dredge of hope he still unknowingly harbored. He'd thought he'd gotten past this. He'd thought he'd stopped seeing his brother's ghost everywhere, stopped grasping after things long lost. If he turned to look, it wouldn't be real. It never was.

He was a fool. He turned anyway.

But by then the boy was gone, leaving only the ghost of that face—_his_ face—in Dick's memory and the bitter taste of desperation on his tongue.

Ultimately, there was only the sound of his own voice whispering into the wind things better left forgotten:

"Timothy."

* * *

Tim adjusted the backpack he had slung over one shoulder—red, like the jacket—careful of the eggs and bread nestled alongside the textbooks inside. It had long since passed from twilight into true dark, the ghostly half-light spilling from the corner-store windows behind him eaten up not ten feet from the doors. The darkness didn't bother him. The shadowy corners and dark alleyways were just part of growing up in Gotham. He knew what things lurked out there in the gutters, when they came out, where they prowled, how to avoid the worst of them. That was what mattered.

It was his city. His neighborhood. Even the areas he'd never been to before, he often found he recognized—a déjà vu-like knowledge that there was space to hide behind a certain trashcan or rooftop access at a particular junction.

The day was an endless monotony of school and work, the hours bleeding together in a continuum of pencil scratches and polite smiles. It wasn't until nighttime the drudgery sloughed off and he was free.

As he ducked down the next alleyway, into familiar dank darkness, he spared a thought for Dana, what she'd think if she knew how much time he spent prowling access ways through the roughest parts of the city. If she'd even understand…

"Shouldn't be out here alone, kiddy." A tin can rolled to a stop in front of Tim's feet and he looked up curiously. A face leered out of the darkness, all toothless grin and greasy hair. "What would your mother say?" Someone new. Someone who didn't know about him.

It only took Tim a second to assess the threat, the knife clasped tight in grimy fingers, and another second to discount it. Easily dealt with. Tim was quick and efficient, dropping low, one foot sweeping around to take out the knife. It went skittering into the trash-lined gutters. Before the man could retaliate, Tim's other foot connected with his jaw—_mind the eggs, don't jolt the backpack_—and since he was already stumbling back, Tim followed through, using the man's thrown-off balance to bring him down. There was a thud as his head connected with the concrete.

"I wouldn't know." Tim crouched over the man, expression detached, one forearm pressed to his throat, just hard enough to keep him down.

"What?" His would-be assaulter stared up at him wide-eyed—the _easy_ school kid sitting on his chest who'd just knocked him flat on his backside without blinking.

"I wouldn't know. My mom doesn't speak to me very often." Tim let him go then, standing up so the man could scramble away and take off down the alley. It was probably the last time he'd be a problem. If overwhelmed the first time, they tended to think twice about a second encounter.

Just how Tim wanted it.

He watched until the man's footsteps faded into the city noise before turning and heading home again, backpack safely slung over his shoulder once more. The man at the next corner just nodded at him. He already knew. There were few things in the darkness Tim couldn't handle, and even fewer he feared. Some of those things he could name. Some he couldn't. For those, there were always rumors… Sitting on the fire escapes, listening to the stories passed back and forth below, he'd heard things: whispers of bodies disappearing or turning up impossibly broken, the most raucous troublemakers vanishing in a night.

Even Tim had seen things sometimes. Shadows that didn't belong. The impression of things moving just out of sight. Like now.

He stilled in the midst of a particularly dark patch of alleyway, pinned under the assessing weight of eyes. There was no movement in the stagnant shadows: neither in the myriad of impenetrably black corners hugging the walls nor in the catwalks above. Not a flicker indicated there was anything out of place, but there was a heaviness to the air, cloying in his lungs.

His only warning was the shiver that went down his back, a ripple in the shadows. He turned to look…

Something hit him—hard, it knocked the breath out of him—jerking him off his feet. There was a moment of disorientation when the world seemed to blur and whistle in his ears, and it was only belatedly, blinking in the sudden return of clarity—and with it, brick walls hemming him in on three sides—that he realized he'd been dragged backward, caged. Like the cats that batted mice into a corner to watch them squirm. It was a good corner too, cut off even from streetlights or lit windows. But it was more than that, almost unnaturally dark, like the shadows had condensed and become a physical whisper against his face and hands. Almost pitch black. Even in normal alleys there was light. Here, he could only tell which way was out by looking up, by noting which direction the perpetual gray cloud cover was not blocked out by building walls.

Maybe he'd been lucky. Maybe until that moment, when he'd stared into the darkness, that darkness hadn't been looking back. And that night, for the first time, the darkness had been watching and his luck had run out.

One foot landed in a stagnant puddle he couldn't see, splashing sickly-warm water up his leg, soaking his jeans. But it grounded him, provided some kind of sensory input to orient around. No sooner did he have his feet back under him than Tim hooked a foot into the shadows, around what he estimated was the ankle of his captor, pulled his fist back, and aimed for what should have been a chest. He hit solid, all points connecting. It should have tripped his captor. It should at least have winded him. Instead, all it did was dislocate several of Tim's fingers.

"_Hnn_." He couldn't keep the little gasp of pain from escaping. Then there were arms locking around him, unyielding and cold. He struggled against the constricting grip, kicking out with his feet, and _gah_, he had to stop that before he broke something. Maybe the man was wearing body armor—Tim's toes could testify. It was a logical possibility—logic to stave off the suffocating pressure of irrationality clawing to be let in.

He was shoved up against the brick wall behind him then—_the eggs, that crunching sound was definitely the eggs_—head cracking against the chipped stone. A single hand against his chest held him pinned there, immobilized, struggling to breathe. He could feel the points of sharp nails biting through his shirt. Another hand scraped fingers consideringly up the column of his throat, hooking under his jaw to jerk his face up for inspection. Then, finally—maybe it was the angle catching the faint light reflected from the clouds above, maybe it was the proximity—the shadows parted, crawling away from a pale face, and he got a look at his attacker.

It wasn't what he expected. It was worse.

There was a small, high-pitched voice in his head whispering _monster, monster_, but the face frozen above him wasn't that of some hideous monstrosity. It was beautiful. Terrifyingly beautiful. A rough, handsome, _dangerous_ kind of beauty, all edges and contrasts. Something about the way the shadows fell only accented it. There was something mesmerizing there, something that naturally drew his gaze, and Tim thought if he looked too long he might never look away again. If he looked long enough, he might forget about running and getting home to Dana and never looking back.

He might forget about the wickedly-sharp fangs gracing that perfect mouth.

* * *

It wasn't anything in particular that made Jason pick the boy off—pick _that_ one out of all the others. He might have noticed the red jacket, might have seen the black wisps of hair escaping from beneath the hood. Maybe something in the mannerism.

It was a stroke of misfortune for the kid. Jason didn't pull punches like the others. He wasn't going to let the boy wander off afterward, a bit dazed and with some vague memory of stepping too close to the shadows, ultimately unharmed. He wasn't going to enthrall him either—roll his mind until there was nothing in it, no cares, no pain, no swiftly approaching end. He wasn't a kind person. The world didn't deserve his kindness anymore.

He wanted this to hurt. He wouldn't mind the screaming. Not one bit.

They'd be lucky if they found the body.

He shoved the boy up against the brick wall, further into the darkness. The battering of hands against his chest, the scrape of nails, meant nothing. The quiet, soft little gasps of pain—he'd probably broken toes trying to kick himself free—were only exciting. The kid didn't have a prayer of escaping him, not a hope in hell. Jason pressed him back, enjoying the raspy sound of the brick catching at the red cotton of the kid's jacket.

If he was disappointed in one thing, it was the silence. Usually they threatened or cursed or screamed—screams that scratched against his soul. Blissful screams to drown out the howling memories in his head that were all he could hear, merging with the red in his vision that was all he could see. Usually, they screamed. Not this one. This one was silent. Dispassionately, he examined the catch struggling against his grip.

If the hoodie was red—his color, always _his _color—it was irrelevant. If the kid's hair was black, it was coincidence. Jason wouldn't be persuaded to let this one off easy. Not even if the eyes were…

He jerked the face up with sudden determination, wanting to see the differences: the prominent nose, the thick eyebrows, the facial twitch, the _flaw_ that dispelled the illusion and proved all the similarities were a coincidence. Only there weren't any. The face that stared up at him was scratched and bloodied, yes, but indistinguishable to the one in his memories. Even the eyes were that same shade of cobalt blue, staring at him accusingly.

He froze, startled into perfect stillness. He'd never forget that face, even after so many decades, and seeing it again now, so unexpectedly, felt like a punch to the gut.

How many times had he seen it all pretty and perfectly preserved in paintings around the manor, or pale and broken in his nightmares? When he closed his eyes. When he opened them. Now in a dirty, dead-end alley, painted on the face of his would-be victim, scratched and coated in the grime through which Jason had dragged him.

It was a trick. It had to be, and he wasn't going to stand for it.

He lashed out blindly at the apparition that stood there defiantly wearing a face that didn't belong to him, but his fist hit only bricks, the unyielding wall in front of him. Somehow, when he'd been distracted, immobilized by shock, the kid had disappeared. His backpack still lay where it had fallen though, in a stagnant puddle, and his smell still clung to Jason's jacket and shirt and hands. It still permeated the emptiness where the boy had been. So familiar. Achingly familiar.

That was all he needed.

He snarled as he started after the kid, the shock boiling down into anger. Because Timothy was dead. He was dead, and Jason wouldn't stand for this… this _pretender_ taking his place.

* * *

**Author Notes:** This story started as just fills for the scenes Bluethursday didn't write on her Vampire Bats story (on Tumblr), but it sort of gained a life of its own. There are still a lot of elements pulled from her original verse, but you'll see some distinct changes too. Instead of changing their names down through the years, I made a distinction between their full names and the modernizations/shortenings of them. Posted with Blue's permission.

Apologies, because this fic really doesn't have enough Young Justice in it to warrant posting here, but it's AU no matter where I put it. My beta and I thought it might be more appreciated in a category that is, itself, an AU. And Young Justice was what got me reading Robin comics in the first place. (now, if they'd just stop putting the show on hiatus)

We're in a whole new world and Jason still thinks of Tim as a replacement. Some things are universal. Over all, I am much happier with my characterization in this piece over my last one. Of course, I'd still love to hear if anyone notices anything really off—might not be able to fix it, but I'll always keep it in mind for next time.

Thanks to Schnick for helping look over my work, despite the fact that it's always about her least favorite character.

The Bad News: Usually I don't start posting a story until it's 90 percent complete, but this story isn't anywhere near that. Because I'm still working out backstory issues and because the next segment contains too many informational bits subject to change, I can't guarantee when the next chapter will be posted. I do have a lot more written on it though. In the meantime, enjoy chapter 1?

**Next Time** (unless something changes): Tim's had about enough excitement for one night, but his troubles are only beginning, especially when Jason tracks him back home. As if one vampire wasn't bad enough, what's he going to do when he's forced to meet a whole family of them?


	2. Abduction

**Chapter 2**

Abduction

Tim scrambled in through the window on the second floor, more hurriedly than usual and definitely not with his usual grace. It was home, but it didn't feel safe even after he'd slammed the glass pane back down behind him, drawn the curtains, and slid into a heap against the wall. The shadows here clung comfortably, laying flat and linear, unmoving. Not like the shadows outside. Tiredly, he leaned his head back and tried not to see that face when he closed his eyes. Not the face he'd expected.

_I know you_.

The older boy had been roughly handsome even in the poor light, and somehow Tim knew without being able to see that his eyes were green, his hair black. He knew it as assuredly as he knew he'd never seen the other boy in his life.

The sense of déjà vu was overwhelming.

Even surrounded now by his own things, the familiar pieces of a familiar life, he couldn't dispel that feeling of having brushed up against something so far beyond him he could only grasp vaguely at the enormity of it—a sliver of time and place that shouldn't have existed, or existed in a memory he could no longer recall. He'd brushed against it, and for a second reality had trembled. He was _still_ trembling, praying it was over and done, even when he knew it was too late. It had already changed everything.

It took a while for normal concerns to filter through his panic: the sharp pain in his damaged right hand and corresponding foot, the loss of his things. He took a minute to flatten the hand on the floor and realign the fingers, gritting his teeth against the stabbing pain.

There was no sound from the first floor, but he knew Dana was down there, probably sitting on the couch the way she did. He couldn't face her. Not yet. He'd lost the groceries he was supposed to bring home, his textbooks and school accessories. It'd be too late by morning. Even if by some miracle he managed to find his backpack again, the books would be ruined—soaked in the filth of Gotham's streets and egg yolks. But there was no way he was going back out now.

It was in the middle of that thought the calming silence of his room broke under the unmistakable _skreech_ of his window forced open against the lock. It was a terrible sound that set Tim's teeth on edge even as he sprang up, turning to face the older boy currently forcing his way into the bedroom. There was nowhere to go—the other window opened onto a two-story drop. If he tried for the door, he'd lead the problem straight to Dana. He stood trapped there, cornered in his own room.

For a moment they faced each other. Tim could see the older boy better now—caught in the sickly city light that always poured through his windows, illuminating a leather jacket and boots. He'd been right about the hair and eyes. It was not the kind of thing he wanted to be right about.

Looking at him brought that same strong sense of déjà vu back, pulling at the edges of reality. Someone had spread new paint over an old painting, and it was cracking, chipping away, bits of the black underneath showing through.

He edged toward the dresser, aware of the green eyes following his every step. They didn't make any move to stop him. Not even when he whisked the drawer open and pulled out Jack's gun—the one he'd put there when Jack had died and he'd come home to find Dana holding it. Not until he spun around, and then the older boy was _right there_, hand tightening around his wrist, holding it immobilized, the gun pointed up. Tim gasped to find him so close and jerked back, but another large hand closed around the back of his neck. Not tight. Loose enough that he could squirm a little if he wanted; firm enough that he could beat his wings bloody against the bar-like fingers without success if he tried.

Tim went still.

"That won't help you," the older boy said. He didn't even bother looking at the gun when he said it, green eyes disconcertingly riveted on Tim's face instead. It was the first time he'd heard the older boy speak and Tim immediately wished he hadn't.

That voice was familiar, a memory that niggled at the cracked paint chips still holding the world together. He could almost hear it: the drone of distant conversations covered over. His heart was pounding, and somewhere else, some-_when_ else, someone else's was too. Someone was laughing, deep and low. Someone was whispering…

"Why do you have that face?" the older boy asked, and Tim half wanted to just get away from that voice and half wanted to laugh, because that should have been his question. "He's dead. You have no right…" The hand around Tim's neck tightened, the fingers starting to dig sharply into his esophagus.

His head was swimming, and it wasn't even from lack of oxygen. A few more pieces of reality chipped away. If he looked, really looked, he could start to see the picture underneath, start to make out words amid the whispers…

"Jason." He must have said it out loud, because the hand on his neck tightened. He really was going to run out of oxygen now.

"No." It was a growl. "It's not true. Prove you're real. Prove you're not an apparition." He pulled Tim's hand down to his mouth, lips whispering over the inside of his wrist. The gun dropped to the floor, useless, pried out of his hand by a thumb sliding against his palm, up under the grip. It clattered to the floor, forgotten. Tim's focus was all for the sharp incisors grazing the skin of his wrist, finally biting down. _Hard_. He jerked, hiss catching against the back of barred teeth, gritted tight. Slitting his own wrists would have hurt less. He could feel the ache of those teeth at his bones, like rivets through his forearm.

The fingers of his damaged hand twitched uselessly.

Images of broken bodies, twisted and snapped, malformed by impossible strength, left lying in dark corners flashed through Tim's mind. All it would take was a twitch… one single twitch of the hand wrapped around the back of his neck, around his _spinal column_, and he'd be one of them.

But then, just that quickly the older boy drew away, looking up from the mauled wrist sharply, those green eyes locked on his. What was that anyway… shock? Doubt? Anger—still a lot of anger. The pressure against his throat eased ever so slightly, and he pulled in a deep breath.

"Timothy…" That wasn't his name, but Tim didn't bother to correct him—like he was going to correct the crazy man who could break him with a look. "I don't understand. How?" The grip at his neck finally slid away completely, and without it, Tim suddenly found himself grasping at the dresser for support.

The window on the other side of the room seemed so far away. He didn't harbor any illusions about escaping. He wouldn't make it before Jason caught up with him, but if he could just get outside, just put one more wall between this creature and Dana… His arm was already wrapped around the far edge of the dresser. In one quick movement he swept his arm forward, sending pencils and paperweights flying toward the older boy. It was in that moment of confusion he threw himself toward the window, still wide open, waiting. He was _there_, hand planted on the sill to swing himself through, just a foot short, when an arm caught him around the middle. It was like running into a bar at full tilt. It knocked the wind out of him.

Then he was pulled struggling back onto someone's knee—someone with laughing blue eyes, twisting to sit on the sill Tim had just tried to swing out of. This one had the same raven-colored hair, like gossamer strands of shadow, and the arms wrapped around Tim, keeping him from any further flights, were just as immovable as Jason's.

"Another one, Jason?" There were two of them. Tim gritted his teeth. There went his plan to get outside, away from other people. "Can't you at least put them under…?" And then he got a good look at Tim. Tim could tell by the way he took on that same startled expression Jason had, the way he went perfectly still.

"Timothy?" The blue-eyed one asked, incredulous, and Tim had the fitful feeling he'd gotten tangled in some serious case of mistaken identity. But it was too late to correct any mistaken impressions, because hope was already spreading across that porcelain-perfect face. The smile directed at him then was brilliant. Beautiful. It was the kind of smile to make heads turn. To make hearts falter. It was the kind of smile men might die for. It was _terrifying_.

"Timothy!" And suddenly he was smothered in the other's exuberant joy. The arms wrapped loosely around him tightened painfully, crushing him fully against a solid chest.

Tim immediately went rigid, hands pushing futilely at broad shoulders. He managed to brace one knee awkwardly against the sill. It took him a full minute to realize he wasn't actually being crushed, but hugged. This dangerous creature with blue eyes was _hugging_ him. Tim struggled harder.

"What is this? What… What _are_ you?!" The crushingly exuberant grip on him lessoned then, if only so those impossibly blue eyes could meet his, all shock and disbelief, searching for some sign of recognition.

"Don't you know who I am?"

Still stuck, Tim licked his lips, not sure what the correct answer was. He didn't remember them, no, had never seen them in his life—he firmly kicked the déjà vu that said they were familiar, that he _should_ know them. He _didn't_. But the blue-eyed one seemed to want him to say yes. If he did, if he pretended to know them, would they be less inclined to leave him bloody on the floor?

"Timothy?" Dick prompted, and there was something compelling there, something that demanded truth.

It wasn't his name. He shook his head. "I don't know you." And just that fast, all the laughter was gone from the older boy's expression, so thoroughly Tim wondered if he'd just imagined it, just _remembered_ it. He couldn't place why he should feel guilty about letting the older boy down.

"Is this a joke?" When Jason shook his head and Tim only stared back, he released his hold around Tim's waist, setting him back on his feet. Still inside the room. Still trapped. He smiled then, not as whole-heartedly as before, but warmly, as if trying to reassure a potentially flighty animal—maybe he'd noticed Tim eyeing the exits, calculating. "What's your name?"

Tim flexed his damaged fingers a little to buy time. They were already in his home, already knew where he lived. He wasn't giving them anymore. But he _wanted_ to. That was the scary thing. With those blue eyes smiling at him expectantly, he wanted to tell the older boy whatever he wanted.

"I think you scared the kid," Jason said.

The blue-eyed one shot him a look.

"_I _scared him?" His raised eyebrow took in the various possessions that had obviously been on the dresser now scattered across the floor before settling on the injured hand Tim was still favoring. "I can guess how you found him, what you were going to do. Was it the red jacket? The black hair?"

"I left him in one piece, didn't I?"

The blue-eyed one didn't respond to that, just stared at him until Jason threw his hands in the air.

"He _tastes_ the same."

"But he doesn't remember?"

"I don't know, Dickie-bird. He knew my name." Jason shrugged. "Why don't you ask him—maybe you'll have better luck getting answers. _I_ got a gun aimed at my head."

"I can't imagine why," the blue-eyed one (Dick, Tim reasoned) replied, droll. "Yet you didn't put him under." There was a look there, an entire series of verbal exchanges in the blink of an eye. Something like, _Why do you do this?_ and _We've had this conversation before_. And a dozen other things.

"No." And once again, it encompassed a set of familiar rejoinders Tim couldn't pick up. There was something like, _You know why_, and _Get off my case_ in there.

At that point, Dick turned to look at him.

"Let's see if we can't clean you up a little…" The next second the older boy was in front of him, cold fingers brushing his cheek ever so lightly where he'd scraped it against the brick wall earlier. Tim started to jerk back, startled by the sudden proximity, but those cool hands were just as suddenly bracing either side of his head, holding him still with the slightest pressure of fingertips against his scalp. There was a reassuring smile—it didn't help—then the whisper-light sensation of lips against his cheek, the slow caress of a tongue, and again at his temple.

Tim shivered, unable to move or escape the attention. It left a sheen of warm dampness on his skin and dissolved the sting of the scrapes he'd almost completely forgotten about.

The fingertip-pressure, like rivets through his skull, disappeared then, only to shift to his hand, which was captured and lifted to those same lips. There were bruises lining his knuckles from punching Jason, but they were washed away under cold kisses. Tim watched, perhaps a little wide-eyed, unable to keep from shivering a little as the older boy worked. When Dick finally pulled back, the ache was gone, the fingers no longer permanently cramped.

The smile Dick wore was satisfied, like he'd gotten some kind of answer.

"I'd like to take you to meet someone."

"_No_." Jason cut in, scowling, already seeing where Dick was going, and Tim could only look back and forth between them blankly, hand at his head trying to fend off the growing headache.

"B will want to know."

"We can't just take him to the manor!"

"It's _Timothy_," as if that made it alright. As if he was someone they trusted, or at least not a danger. Maybe some harmless family pet.

"It's Tim, actually," but no one paid him any attention. Dick just ruffled his hair fondly.

"Fine," Jason said, "but you get to explain to B." Dick's smile was brilliant.

"I'll carry him."

"No." Tim shook his head, backing away when Dick made to pick him up. "I'd really rather stay here."

"Take it easy, kid. Dick won't hurt you, much." Jason was there, behind him in the blink of an eye—Tim couldn't help it, his breath hitched. It was the way they moved—sliding in and out of the shadows so quickly it was no more than a flicker at the edge of his vision. Sometimes just when they turned to each other, it was a little too quick, a little too liquid to be real. Even knowing they could, even expecting it, it startled him. Then Jason's hands fitted to his waist, hoisting him up as though he weighed no more than a paperweight.

"Hn!" he sucked in a breath, clutching at the arms that held him for balance. He'd always been small, but it had been years since anyone had been able to lift him like that, and he wasn't sure he appreciated the reminder. But any remaining petulant thoughts were quickly wiped out of his head as Jason's hands slid under his thighs to guide his knees around either side of Dick's waist, hooking on his hips. He struggled against the hold, but it was inevitable. He couldn't break the other boy's grip. Not the pressure of Jason at his back, holding him up, not Dick's hands wrapping under his knees to keep him in place.

"I'd hold on if I were you." Jason grinned toothily at him, and Tim was not convinced the older boy wasn't still thinking of eating him, not convinced at all. But then they were outside, the broken window behind them, and it was all he could do to press himself tight against Dick's back and hold on.

* * *

"What do you think you're doing bringing _that_ into my father's house?" Damian was there the moment they came in the door, hands on hips.

"Shut up, spawn boy."

"Get Bruce." Dick whisked past them both, starting across the foyer. Tim had been practically molded to his spine the entire way over, but he could already feel the slow uncoiling of muscles, fingers loosening their death grip at his shoulders. His own grip tightened on the legs around his waist.

"I'm not your dog," Damian huffed.

"Damian, please." Dick turned to the youngest, who had crossed his arms stubbornly.

"Yeah, fetch, Rover."

"_Jason_." Dick shot him a look. He didn't have time to bother with their bickering. Not now. It was fortuitous perhaps that Tim chose that moment to inadvertently distract them by peering out from behind his shoulder to see what was going on.

"Is that…" Damian didn't have any memories of Timothy like the rest of them—they'd never met—but there was no way he could miss that face. It hung in the hallways, passed by a hundred times over the years. He'd gotten in trouble once for destroying one of those paintings—for destroying the face of some dead boy who wasn't coming back.

Dick didn't have time to analyze the emotion that flickered across Damian's face—anger maybe, or fear—before it was gone, the boy along with it, off to find Bruce. He turned instead to the door on his left, Jason tailing him. He could feel the slight movements of Tim at his back, turning his head to take in everything, and (if he was anything like Timothy) memorizing the way back out. The knees hooked around his hips shifted impatiently and it was probably only the unfamiliar surroundings keeping him from fighting to get down.

Not yet.

Dick tightened his grip on the underside of those scrawny legs—_carefully_, or he'd leave purple bruises if not broken bones, and wouldn't that make a great impression? It wasn't until they were in the study, lamps lit pale yellow, and he could drop the boy by one of the sofas that he let go, letting the knees slide from his hips. Tim's feet hit the plush area rug with a course whisper of skin scuffing wool fibers.

He didn't sit down.

His eyes flickered around the room, taking it all in, jumping repeatedly to Jason, who had taken up a post by the window. Dick snagged an arm around the boy's shoulders, pulling him snug against his side, hand ruffling that wind-tousled black hair. Tim made a noise, some little note of surprise and annoyance muffled against his shirt.

"It'll be alright. No one here's going to hurt you." It was hard not to touch him, not to take in the smell of him—bitter like Gotham, sharp and sweet like blood—not to reassure himself the boy was real. He didn't want to let go—not after all this time. He didn't ever want to let go again. A part of him still expected Tim might vanish into smoke and dark memories.

It _was_ Timothy. Dick could still taste the sharp tang of the boy's blood on his tongue—too familiar blood. All of his senses told him it was true. He was here. He was real. After so long, the brother they'd lost had been returned to them.

The others would see it.

There wasn't any noise to alert him, not the tread of feet or sigh of fabric, but maybe the doorway seemed suddenly darker, and Dick looked up seconds before Bruce stepped into the room with Damian. Bruce's ice-blue eyes swept the room, taking in the three of them gathered there: Jason with his arms crossed leaning against the windowsill, Dick standing on the area rug between the two sofas, arm pressing a disgruntled Tim protectively against his side.

"Timothy." Dick knew the moment Bruce really looked at the boy—saw it in the slight softening of ice-blue eyes, the almost-smile that touched his lips at the memories, and then the _pain_… And just that quickly the hardness was back, walls slamming back into place. "No. Absolutely not. You can't keep him."

"Bruce…"

"Don't you think I want him back too?"

"This _is_ Timothy." Dick stared back defiantly, hand tightening protectively around the boy—only to loosen again when Tim winced. He had to remember that it wasn't the same. He couldn't hug the kid as tightly as he wanted. Not this new, fragile, easily-broken version.

"And you?" Bruce looked over at Jason, who was still standing, arms crossed, looking anywhere but at the boy. "What do you think?"

"It's not him," he said, ignoring Dick's betrayed frown. "Timothy's dead, and I won't let some freaking clone _replace_ him."

"Why don't you tell Bruce what you told me?" Dick asked. "About how he knew your name?" He made to tousle the head of dark hair tucked against his side—an unconsciously reassuring gesture—but Tim batted at the hand and Dick blinked. Blinked, because he'd forgotten—_how_ had he ever forgotten—the way Timothy had ducked away from his touches, flustered. The memory was so sharp just then. He settled the hand on the kid's shoulder instead, turning to face Bruce stubbornly. They all saw it. The similarities. He'd be danged if he let them hide behind old wounds and not face up to it. "Come on, B, give him a chance."

"Hm." Bruce stepped closer and crouched before the boy so they were more even, making himself less the towering monolith that frightened other shadows off the streets. "What's your name?" Dick gave that thin shoulder a supportive squeeze.

"Tim Drake."

"Do you understand why you're here, Tim?"

"You think I'm… Timothy?" If skepticism had form, it was a disbelieving slant of blue eyes, the twist of a mouth. "Who's… dead?"

"We just want to ask you a few questions."

"I'm not a clone," Tim replied flatly.

"No one said you were." Bruce glanced at Jason. "We'd just like to find out how you knew Jason's name. Did you hear it somewhere?"

"No." The kid still didn't look happy, but at least he was cooperating. "I've never met him." Cooperating, because it wasn't a lie—nothing changed, not the beat of his heart, not the hitch of his breath. Dick frowned.

"You must have had some reason for using that name."

"I thought he looked familiar." Tim's eyes flickered to Jason for a second and back, just the smallest hesitation. "It was a mistake. I've definitely never seen him before." _There_ it was. He was good. Boy, he was good, maybe he even believed that answer himself. Bruce had caught it though, seen the lie, maybe only a half-truth, and his eyes bored into Tim's, unforgiving blue ice demanding answers. Close as he was, Dick felt the moment Tim lost himself in that gaze, succumbing to Bruce's will. It was a loosening of thin shoulders, a loss of tension, the way his gaze snapped rapt to the man before him. Dick tried to keep from disapproving. It was necessary. They needed the answers, and Bruce was the best qualified to get them. It was _necessary_.

"Now," Bruce repeated, "how did you know Jason's name?"

"I… remember someone calling it." Tim reached a hand up to his temple, as if he had a headache.

"What else do you know about us? What else do you remember?" With those blue eyes boring into him, Tim should have wanted to answer the question, should have been more than forthcoming, should have at least been relaxed and amenable to their suggestions. Under that influence, he should have been able to tell them things he himself didn't remember: things long forgotten, things overlooked. There was no room for refusal in Bruce's compulsion. So it was surprising when Tim jerked his head to the side, never quite losing eye contact, but struggling against it. Not against Bruce. Not exactly. Dick had seen similar reactions occasionally, usually in response to a particularly difficult answer, one that caused some deal of pain or turmoil to recall. Shoulder blades pressed back into Dick's restraining arm, but there was nowhere to go.

"_Don't_." It was strained, panicked. "Please." But the plea came too late. It was rolled under by the prevailing force of Bruce's command. _Tim_ was rolled under, forced into the memory he was straining against. The breath he'd been holding tight released in a staccato exhale.

"What else, Tim?" Bruce pressed. In retrospect, Dick should've started worrying when the boy began shivering in his arms.

"It's cold." The way he mumbled it, as if his lips were numb, Dick could almost feel the chill, and it was wrong—wrong in so many ways: the answer itself, the persistent shivering that set Dick's teeth on edge, the disquieting notion in the first place that it might really be Timothy they'd found. What that _meant._

"Something's not right." Nothing had been right from the beginning. Where he stood behind Bruce, Damian shifted restlessly, gaze flicking right to left as if trying to pinpoint the source of his unease.

"I win again, Timothy." The sudden drawl was unexpected, jerking everyone's attention back to Tim. Unexpected not just because of the sudden breath in the still room, but because the intonation was all wrong. It didn't sound like Tim. Not at all. It was deeper, older, wrong in a way that set Dick's teeth on edge. And it didn't stop. The words repeated, low and eerie. "I win again, Timothy." And again. The hand that wasn't clenched tight on Dick's arm—the one Tim had pressed to his temple—was curled cruelly, nails kissing bloody crescent moons into his scalp.

"Stop it." Jason found his voice first, swiping a hand through the air as if he could ward off unwanted memories. "_Stop_ him!" It took that angry interjection to snap Dick out of his shock. The body in his arms shivered violently, caught in the grip of some icy nightmare. Sharp blue eyes never left Bruce, but now they focused beyond him, wide with alarm.

"Timothy!" Dick jerked the boy around, forcing that distant gaze to face him. "Tim!" But it remained distant, lost in the horror of whatever memory Bruce had pulled up.

"I win again, Timothy."

Even Damian's face had twisted into shocked revulsion.

"Look at me." Dick shook thin shoulders—harder, _harder_. "Come on, Timothy, _please_." But he couldn't get Tim's attention, couldn't shake him out of it. Finally, he stopped. "I can't." And looked up—looked for some sort of assistance—but all around the room, gazes just as disturbed as his own stared back. There was no help anywhere. "Bruce…"

But Bruce was shaking his head, brow furrowed in concentration.

"I win again, Timothy."

In desperation, Dick grabbed the throw over the back of the nearest sofa and wrapped it around the boy, but the chill seemed to be inside him, emanating from his bones. In the end, all he could do was hold the shivering body securely in his arms. Hold him until his breath hitched high and cut off.

* * *

**Author Notes:** Hn, I'm still not sure that last part is coming out how I want it, but oh hey, look, I posted something! I am so sorry that this has taken so long, and even sorrier that I can't guarantee another update anytime soon. As I told one person, everything is just combining against me on this: the total lack of fantasy appreciation in the fandom, my friend/compatriot-in-crime/beta ditching DC, and more than anything else... my newborn little girl. She's my first, and I'm particularly terrified of breaking her. I thought once she was born I'd have time while she slept, but I need some seriously undisturbed hours to write, and I just can't focus with her like this, and it looks to be awhile before anything improves. So much for the best of intentions.

I want to thank everyone who took the time to write a review to encourage me, and especially Callypse for going out of her way to contact me directly and ask about it. It means a lot!

Since my beta is boycotting DC right now, I have a request... It's a bit time-consuming to look through every comic book to double-check how characters refer to each other, and I'm certain some of my brilliant readers have it all memorized, so if you notice any that are wrong, would you let me know?

Also, I've been told by a couple people that the first chapter is a little confusing. Here's the thing... the characters themselves don't even fully understand what's going on yet, and my hope is that the readers will pick it up as they go. There are some things I'm hinting at that I expect no one to get yet, but I also know that I sometimes hint at too many things at once (things I should just say outright instead of keeping secret). If you're confused, would you let me know what it is you don't understand? Then I can determine whether people are catching on to what I want them to or not (did this chapter start to clear things up or make it worse?). Thanks.


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